Day Two
Yesterday was a pretty hard day. I took a walk with my wife but had trouble enjoying her company because I felt so irritable. I'm realizing that I made a bad choice late last year to begin tapering off the medications I've taken for so many years. Things in my life seemed to be better since I retired from my job, and I thought that maybe I'd finally licked the depression I'd lived with for most of my life. I began tapering off my medications and even dropped one of the three that I'd been taking. I thought I was doing all right, but gradually the depression had gotten worse. It had become the new normal for me, but all I was doing was trying to talk myself out of my symptoms. Last week a friend made a casual remark to me and I got furious with him. It was a stupid, meaningless remark, but for some reason it hit me wrong and I was so angry I couldn't even talk about it to my wife. Over the next couple of days I realized that I'd made a terrible mistake in reducing my medications. I immediately increased the dosages and got in touch with my doctor. I'm still waiting to hear from him, but at least I took the first steps to straighten myself out. It disappoints me to realize that my depression wasn't rooted, as I thought, in my life situation, but rather in my own biochemical makeup. I don't know why I thought I'd beaten it, but sometimes a changed situation can produce some funny ideas. My former job was a pretty depressing place and I thought that by freeing myself from it that I'd no longer feel depressed. Now I know better. This is an illness with me, and I'll need to treat it with medication for the rest of my life. I guess it could be worse. At least I have the medication to lean on.
Even with that, I have a lot of issues to deal with. I have a son who just walked away from me because I couldn't give him the money he wanted. I was in a job for 26 years that I was forced to leave by an administrator who didn't like me. I haven't found retirement to be all that easy because I don't feel very useful. I've often heard the saying that getting older isn't for sissies, and I'm beginning to understand what that means. I'm having trouble motivating myself to find some kind of meaningful activity. I was in an academic job for much of the past forty years and I also had a side career as a writer. Those things defined me for many years, but now the job is gone and I realized not long ago that I'd already written about everything that ever interested me and I no longer had any desire to do it. My wife and I have done some traveling in the past year, but you can't travel all the time. Sooner or later you have to come back home and just "be." I'm not all that good at just "being." For one thing, I have too much time to think, and thinking always brings me to things I'd rather not think about.
I'm gradually understanding that I need to deal with all these old issues in order to get any joy out of life, but I'm also realizing that even though I've been treated for depression for many, many years, I wasn't really dealing with any of the stuff that weighs me down. I guess I was too busy working and dealing with life day by day to work things through. And I have a lot of things to work through--my childhood, feelings of failure, the humiliation of how my professional life ended, my absent son. The list is so long that I almost can't bear to look at it. I've been a pretty negative, pessimistic person most of my life, and that doesn't help me, either. Yesterday I wrote about the institutionalization of certain kinds of thinking that held me back. I see that I've little by little built a rut for myself, the kind of rut that has me saying "life really stinks, but it's all I've got and I just have to soldier on with it." I can see that I've got to get out of that rut and keep myself out of it if things are going to improve for me. Realizing that is an important first step, I guess. But I have a lot of time invested in just settling for the status quo. It frightens me a little to think how hard it will be to break out of that negative thinking. I have a lot of work to do and I don't feel that strong.
Even with that, I have a lot of issues to deal with. I have a son who just walked away from me because I couldn't give him the money he wanted. I was in a job for 26 years that I was forced to leave by an administrator who didn't like me. I haven't found retirement to be all that easy because I don't feel very useful. I've often heard the saying that getting older isn't for sissies, and I'm beginning to understand what that means. I'm having trouble motivating myself to find some kind of meaningful activity. I was in an academic job for much of the past forty years and I also had a side career as a writer. Those things defined me for many years, but now the job is gone and I realized not long ago that I'd already written about everything that ever interested me and I no longer had any desire to do it. My wife and I have done some traveling in the past year, but you can't travel all the time. Sooner or later you have to come back home and just "be." I'm not all that good at just "being." For one thing, I have too much time to think, and thinking always brings me to things I'd rather not think about.
I'm gradually understanding that I need to deal with all these old issues in order to get any joy out of life, but I'm also realizing that even though I've been treated for depression for many, many years, I wasn't really dealing with any of the stuff that weighs me down. I guess I was too busy working and dealing with life day by day to work things through. And I have a lot of things to work through--my childhood, feelings of failure, the humiliation of how my professional life ended, my absent son. The list is so long that I almost can't bear to look at it. I've been a pretty negative, pessimistic person most of my life, and that doesn't help me, either. Yesterday I wrote about the institutionalization of certain kinds of thinking that held me back. I see that I've little by little built a rut for myself, the kind of rut that has me saying "life really stinks, but it's all I've got and I just have to soldier on with it." I can see that I've got to get out of that rut and keep myself out of it if things are going to improve for me. Realizing that is an important first step, I guess. But I have a lot of time invested in just settling for the status quo. It frightens me a little to think how hard it will be to break out of that negative thinking. I have a lot of work to do and I don't feel that strong.
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